How To Get 2 Trips In 1… By Cleverly Using Layovers

Having planned too much trips I can count at this point, I’ve gotten fairly savvy about itinerary planning. If you ask me to name one thing that can truly enhance your trips, but that is often overlooked, I have to say it’s layovers.

Strategically using layovers is surely the most unappreciated travel hack!

Routing your flights via stopovers and spending a night or two there is such a great way to add some variety to a trip.

And the best part?

It doesn’t even have to cost anything extra. In fact, often it can even save you money.

Allow me to explain.

Why layovers are awesome

There are a couple of reasons why layovers should always be in your travel planning toolkit:

1. Flying indirectly can often save you vast amounts on airfare on long-distance trips, so adding a stopover can be a great financial win, especially if you’re on a budget.
2. Layovers can be like a try-before-you-buy experience. You get to spend a day or two in an extra country so that you can check it out — and maybe return one day for a longer trip.
3. Sometimes they’re basically freebies! In certain places, special layover deals exist, so you don’t even have to pay for your hotel in the stopover location.

I used to think that brief stops along the way were never worth it. Surely, it would just needlessly fragment your trip and reduce your time spent in the final destination. However, after some epic layovers I totally came around to considering them amazing.

Some concrete examples

Here are some layovers I did in recent years so you can better understand why I love them:

• On the way to backpacking through Georgia (the country), I made a 48-hour stopover in Istanbul. Since I flew with Turkish Airlines, my 4-star hotel in Istanbul was 100% free of charge. I had an amazing two days in this exciting city on the edge of East and West, before spending 2 weeks in the Caucasus.
• On my way back from Southeast Asia I saw the cheapest flight home from Bangkok went via Beijing. I added 36 hours in the Chinese capital, making use of the free transit visa-on-arrival. I went from swimming in tropical waters in Koh Chang to freezing temperatures at Tiananmen Square; a jarring contrast similar to what you might experience on an epic round-the-world trip.
• While flying to Indonesia I made a stop in Abu Dhabi, again using a promotion to get a completely free hotel. The UAE is not an enticing destination for me on its own, but I jumped at the chance to just spend a day or two there and indulge my curiosity. (And maybe to increase that ‘countries visited’ count by another notch!).

If you have a limited time for travel in a given calendar year then layovers can be an exciting way to season your travels with a bit more variety on the way to your main destinations.

They can make logistical sense, but they can also simply just be fun!

When I traveled from Southeast Asia back home via China, it was super fun to transition from lazing in hammocks on Cambodia’s tropical beaches to walking around Beijing in middle of winter. I literally (not literally) froze my face off as I had packed nothing at all for this weather, but it was totally worth it. 

I ate some weird Chinese food, strolled around Beihai Park where people hung around the ice-skating rings, and experienced the intense security at Tiananmen Square with its creepy face-scanning technology. It was a little slice of China I wouldn’t otherwise have seen. 

If not to sample a destination, then layovers can also simply be fun snack-size additions to a trip. It’s like having a starter before your main dish. And if your flight isn’t direct and you’re having a stopover anyway, why not use it to your benefit?

In Istanbul, I spent the day wandering the Grand Bazaar, visited some of the historical sites dating back to Byzantine and Ottoman times, and had a lovely brunch and meze dinner before meeting up with my travel companion for the rest of the trip in Georgia.

Now that I’ve learned that I love layovers, I find myself thinking back to previous trips. When I flew to South Africa I could have totally had a layover in Addis Ababa! And when I went from Lisbon to Romania via Vienna I could have totally spent a day there! Ahhhh!

Okay, so how do you plan a longer layover?

First step: do multi-stop searches

Layovers do take a bit of extra searching and planning. But it’s not too difficult to book a flight with a longer break in between two legs of the journey.

To find the best layover opportunities, you’ll often have to use multi-stop or multi-city flight searches. Most flight search engines have this feature, but if you only ever book point-to-point trips, you might not have used it before.

Use your favorite flight search engine, enter your starting and final destination and check the results, then note where certain indirect flights make their stops anyway. When you see a route combination you like, you can enter the transit stop into a multi-stop search and add some additional time in that destination.

Now, there’s just one issue: if you do this on a 3rd party booking site, you might get issued separate single flights, which often end up being more expensive than a return.

The solution usually is to go to the airlines’ website and do a multi-city search there. The price you’ll be quoted will usually be similar to a normal return ticket, just with a longer gap for your transfer.

Some search engines specialize in finding layovers that make the total cost of your journey lower, for example because you’ll be flying on cheaper days or crossing into a different airline sector. To find such advantageous flights, check out sites like Cleverlayover or Airwander.

With Cleverlayover, it’s easy to add extra days at the stopover. As they point out themselves, “You could end up saving money while spending an extra week in Honolulu!”

 

Consider ideal stopover destinations

Certain destinations are located strategically between continents or regions, making them ideal stopovers.

For example, consider Iceland, which sits conveniently between Europe and North America. In fact, part of Iceland’s huge tourism success has been to promote and facilitate this type of visit. You can read more on Icelandair and WOWAir‘s websites.

Another example is the Azores islands in the Atlantic, which are right between Europe and the US East Coast. Azores Airlines can connect cross-Atlantic travelers from Oakland, Boston, Toronto, and Montreal to several major cities in Europe, with the option of adding a few days on the islands in between.

Singapore makes for a great stop in Southeast Asia, as its hub airport is incredibly well-connected in the region and globally.

Going to Central America or the Caribbean? Then try flying to Miami or Fort Lauderdale airports before continuing your journey a day or two later.

The list goes on!

 

Check for special deals

Certain destinations promote themselves as a layover place, offering cool freebies to anyone who stays for a while. These usually come from airlines that operate from key hubs.

On my layover in Istanbul, I used a Turkish Airlines promotion that gives you up with a free hotel stay if your layover is at least 20 hours. As an economy class passenger, I could choose from a few different hotels, the most expensive of which normally cost 120 EUR a night.

The following destinations currently offer free or discounted accommodation:

Here are the major airlines that offer stopover programs with free hotel accommodations:

• Turkish Airlines: Stopover in Istanbul program with free accommodation for longer layovers
• Emirates: Connect in Dubai with free hotel for layovers between 10-24 hours
• Qatar Airways: Free hotel night for qualifying transit passengers in Doha
• Etihad Airways: Complimentary hotel for eligible passengers in Abu Dhabi
• China Southern: Free hotel in Guangzhou for qualifying international connections
• Air China: Free hotel in Beijing
• Asiana Airlines: Transit hotel program for eligible passengers in Seoul

Other airlines like Singapore Airlines and Icelandair offer discounted or free tours or experiences instead of hotels. Thrifty Nomads has a great list of layover cities offering free tours. These are just the ones I know of right now… there may be more if you look around!

So there you have it, a layover can be a real bonus to a travel itinerary and help you see more countries around the world. They only take a little bit of extra planning, but often it’s worth the effort!